The hits don't start v4: Scraps from the cutting room!
Greetings friends, enemies, and acquaintances wavering between amity and enmity, I hope you’re all treading water. Sometimes one keeps doing a thing despite the deep embarrassment involved. For instance, I regularly put myself in situations where other people can perceive me or things I’ve made. For another instance, I will admit, in shame, that I sometimes google myself. Pure vanity, terrible sin, and not the cool kind either. To be fair though I’ve aged out of any cool kind of sinning, I’m a rubber band that’s been stretched too many times, I can at this point get a hangover because I ate a little too much salt. Anyway, that’s just to say, I get it, I did an unseemly thing, but I also want you to know that THIS ONE TIME when I googled myself it was actually somewhat defensible.
Okay so here’s what happened. A while back I temporarily channeled my usual seething into a short thing that I submitted to the Des Moines Register. (That’s below under the heading Thing One.) I later submitted three other things to them (below, labeled helpfully - no need to thank me! - as Things Two through Four), one of them a reply to response to Thing One by some ethanol industry flack, and they didn’t take any of them. In all these instances I never heard back. I only learned Thing One had appeared in the D’Register because a coworker texted me.
Well, it happened again (I get mad, I get mad, I get mad), I lost my way in a haze of grumpiness and came to grinding my teeth having just hit send to the D’Register on a 5th try. (You might ask the question “hey why bother?” and all I can say is, dear reader, we need to have a whole nother conversation if you think I’m a guy with answers.) As per previous I’ve not heard back yet and I assume I won’t, and further assume Thing Five won’t get published. If that ends up happening I’ll slap it up here eventually as it has a joke I liked writing in it.
So, curious to see if the thing had maybe come out (a lesser vanity at the very least, no? I must be shriven!) I googled to see if Thing Five had appeared. Nope. In the process I remembered that I had submitted Thing Four to another publication, Little Village, which I also didn’t hear back from. I remember this specifically when I found this link to Thing Four on their web site. That made me think it’s probly time for a 4th installment of my Greatest Misses collection. Without further ado, please find below me writing a bit about Iowa air quality and politics and whatnot, posted here for the sake of having my stuff in one location and on the presumption that perhaps some of the people looking at a web site/email newsletter designed to provide them with my writing might want to read some of my writing. (Not something I actually presume, to be totally honest!)
Thing One
Air quality will never improve if we wait on politicians to do it: Canada's wildfires obscure big issues
The air quality here in Des Moines recently hit the “very unhealthy” level, purple on the AirNow.gov monitoring site. This poor air quality is especially harmful for older people and medically vulnerable people, including many people who have had COVID-19. Because poorer health outcomes tend to worsen people's economic prospects, and because lower income people generally have poorer health outcomes, this bad air will especially harm lower income Iowans.
Anyone who follows the national news will know that other parts of the country have recently suffered smoke problems similar to ours here in Iowa. News reports on this dangerous air have been using the phrase “Canadian wildfires,” which misleads by being partially true. The phrase is like a magician waving a wand to influence where the audience’s attention is, and where it isn’t. A news media focused on informing the public would minimize use of the phrase. Of course, there are big fires in Canada right now, these are record-setting fires and we are still early in fire season. My point is that where the smoke blew here from doesn’t explain much that matters. What’s far more important is why there is so much smoke in the air. The reason why is planet-heating pollution, which we often call global climate change.
The connection between pollution and wildfires is not complicated: emissions lead to hotter, drier summers. Hotter, drier forests burn more easily. And so we have more fires. If emissions continue to increase, the planet will keep heating, and we will have more wildfires of this kind. They are not a Canadian problem, they are a global humanity problem, caused by pollution. Despite this, the Biden administration keeps approving new fossil fuel projects. These projects amount to pouring gas on the fire. They will cause more pollution and more heating of our planet.
Iowa-produced ethanol is a part of the problem as well. Despite the labels on the pump at gas stations, ethanol does not promote cleaner air. Ethanol turns corn into a source of air pollution, and there is a lot of corn in Iowa. Ethanol causes more ozone emission in particular. Ozone is more easily created in the summer, which is why for years sales of higher ethanol fuels were restricted in summer, but the Biden administration has walked back those regulations. The results are dirtier air and more planetary heating. It is no surprise that we have had an especially bad year for ozone emissions this year as well.
Anyone waiting for state or national politicians to act out of genuine, principled concern for our health will be waiting a long time. Wealthy companies and powerful politicians simply do not have the health and well-being of ordinary people as a high priority, whatever they might say. Historically, ordinary people have only ever been able to make our interests matter to the powerful through the pressure of large-scale protests.
We should all bear this in mind when in the near future we are once again asked to vote and donate to politicians competing for the job of telling us to be patient, of redirecting our attention with words like “Canadian wildfires,” and of getting us to start to think that the unhealthy muck we are forced to breathe is normal. It’s not normal, it’s an outrage. Unless a protest movement forces a very rapid reduction in carbon emissions, however, this will become normal, and many people will live shorter, more painful lives from spending more days breathing in unhealthy air.
(Response of July 6 by Emily Skor, CEO of Growth Energy, response titled 'Iowa-produced bioethanol is key to improving air quality.' "Improving our air quality, decarbonizing transportation, and protecting human health are core missions of Iowa's bioethanol industry. That's why it was disappointing to read Nate Holdren's July 9 essay in the Register incorrectly suggesting that "Iowa-produced ethanol is a part of the problem." Sound science tells a different story. In fact, biofuels, like plant-based bioethanol, can immediately lower greenhouse gas emissions and reduce harmful air toxins.
The latest studies by the University of California-Riverside confirmed yet again that bioethanol blends reduce toxic emissions, including lowering ozone forming potential and significant reductions of harmful particulates that contribute to smog. At the same time, bioethanol reduces greenhouse gas emissions by up to 46% compared with gasoline. As a result, transitioning to higher biofuel blends like E15, a 15% bioethanol blend, would reduce CO2 emissions by 17.62 million tons, equivalent to removing 3.85 million cars from the road.
Fortunately, the Biden administration, Gov. Kim Reynolds, and Iowa's congressional delegation recognize the importance of biofuels for cleaner air. If we want to make even greater progress on air quality, we need to make sure E15 is permanently available year-round.")
Thing Two
My reply of August 1: Emily Sklor, the CEO of Growth Energy, an association of ethanol manufacturers, wants ordinary Iowans to believe that increasing ethanol production relative to other burnable fuels will benefit the environment and human health. But that’s just false. In a July 16th letter to the Register, replying to my column of July 9th, Sklor points to a University of California-Riverside study on ethanol emissions. The study found that a vehicle with ethanol-added fuel in the tank has cleaner exhaust coming out of its tailpipe than a vehicle without such fuel. In pointing to this study Sklor is acting like a stage magician who waves a wand with their right hand and says ‘look at my wand!’ The magician is not lying, the wand is real, but they are misleading by misdirection, by controlling where the audience focuses their attention.
In general, powerful people and their servants want to control what questions ordinary people ask. In pointing to that research Sklor wants us to ask ‘how dirty is the exhaust from a car fueled with ethanol-added fuel vs other fuel?’ Instead we need to ask what is the total effect of ethanol production on the world. That means we have to consider not only what comes out of an individual car’s muffler, but also what happens in farming when more corn is grown for fuel instead of food, and in the industrial and chemical processes required to turn corn into gas.
As the great Upton Sinclair once said, it’s difficult to get a person to understand something when their salary depends on their not understanding it, so Sklor won’t be convinced. Register readers should know, though, that a study published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Science found that increased ethanol production led to greater emission of greenhouse gases due to land use changes. The study’s authors’ concluded that increasing ethanol production is not better than continuing with regular gasoline use and is probably significantly worse. The study also found that ethanol production raises food prices, because more corn is sold to make fuel, and leads to worse water quality due to increased use of chemicals in agriculture. Those are more reasons why ordinary Iowans are worse off due to the efforts of the industry Sklor serves, in addition to the air quality problems I talked about in my column.
When someone tries to control what questions we ask, it helps to look at who supports their efforts and whose efforts they support. Whatever political party one prefers, no one in their right mind thinks Governor Reynolds is an environmentalist, and neither is President Biden. The ethanol industry is bringing in about five billion dollars a year in Iowa. In general, if there are billions of dollars being made, the people in charge are doing it for the money, not because it helps regular people. Those of us who aren’t billionaires, friends of billionaires, or well-paid servants of billionaires need to remember that they don’t have the same interests we do.
We are in the middle of a rapidly worsening global climate disaster. Politicians, the wealthy, and the people they pay handsomely to distract us aren’t particularly worried about the climate because they know that disasters mostly hurt ordinary people, not the powerful. We need to reduce carbon emissions very rapidly in a very short period of time to prevent a huge increase in suffering. Ethanol isn’t a tool for that reduction, it’s a part of the problem.
Thing Three
Iowa Abortion Ban’s a Travesty that Democrats Literally Can’t Fix Fast Enough
The state legislature here in Iowa just banned abortions after the 6th week of pregnancy. That unpopular policy will lead to more unsafe abortions, some of which will kill women. As one Iowan said at the special session, this harmful, discriminatory law – like similar legislation attacking transgender people – seems driven by Iowa Governor Reynolds’s career aspirations. There’s precedent: former Iowa Governor Branstad harmed the poorest Iowans by privatizing Medicaid and later landed a diplomat job under Trump. The powerful play games and we the pawns just get played.
People of conscience respond to these attacks on vulnerable people’s lives by insisting that we need to stop Iowa Republicans, who have no line they will not cross. I couldn’t agree more, but typically people who say this follow it up with “vote them out!” When I hear this, I think of a friend, a cigar-smoking athlete who fractured a bone and tore a ligament in a bike accident. My friend’s health would benefit from dropping the cigars, sure, but right after the collision he needed fast acting medical care more than he needed the long term benefits of stopping smoking. Our lives under Republican government are an ongoing car crash, one that will only get worse due to the global climate disaster. Calls to vote are responding to a car crash by suggesting we quit smoking.
Some people of conscience will reply by pointing out that some Republicans are getting what they want out from the government, like the abortion ban, so why couldn’t people of conscience get what we want if we elected different politicians? After all, past legislation like Social Security and the minimum wage improved people’s lives, didn’t it? That’s a very slow process. Furthermore, voting out Republicans means voting in Democats, who are simply not up to the challenge before us. Nationally, they’re often not just inadequate but actively worsen things, as with the Biden administration’s policies and priorities regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Of course, we could have better Democrats than the ones currently running the party (it’d be harder to do worse). Part of the issue, though, is that the government’s power to worsen our lives can be used much faster – and is more easily used at a local and state level – than its power to improve our lives. Furthermore, the government only tends to use its power of social improvement when confronted by massive protests.
Ultimately, the Democrats’ many failings aren’t the real issue. With even the best possible political party, we just can not handle the serious injustices immediately before us through the slow and limited electoral system. That system is as much a means for governing over us – and so keeping us headed toward a car crash – as it is a means for us to govern ourselves and get off the terrible path we are on. Part of how that system serves to govern us is by getting us to accept its slow pace and relatively polite, impersonal procedures despite the urgency and the personal nature of the suffering forced onto us by this car crash of a society. People of conscience who argue, with the best of intentions, that we must turn to the electoral system to solve the current car crash we are forced to live through are ultimately going to keep us away from more effective and faster-acting responses. Think of the Civil Rights Movement and its victories against racist segregation. Those didn’t come by election but by disruptive civil disobedience.
I close with the words of the activist Mario Savio in 1964: “There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus – and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it – that unless you're free the machine will be prevented from working at all!”
Thing Four
School districts should stand up to Iowa’s legislative bullies
I’m a glasses-wearing college professor, so no one is surprised when I tell them I was a nerdy kid. Like a lot of nerdy kids, I got bullied in school sometimes. Whenever it happened, some adults and other kids would either look away and act like they didn’t notice, or else they’d give me the bad advice of relying on teachers to fix the situation. That advice amounted to saying two things: “trust the institution of the school to take care of you” and “behave as you’re supposed to according to the institution’s rules.” In my experience, this simply never worked. Bullies in my life only ever stopped when I responded to the bully by breaking the rules myself. Sometimes that had hard consequences — I was really scared when I had to tell my parents I got suspended! — but in the end it worked out for the best for me.
I say this because we have a bully problem here in Iowa, specifically in the state legislature, which has passed laws that promote discrimination against children — children! — simply because they’re queer and trans. People of conscience in Iowa need to be very clear that the bullies will never stop until they are made to stop.
Urbandale schools recently pulled 400 books from their libraries in response to legislative bullying, including such moving classes like Catcher in the Rye and the politically informative 1984. This is not the most important part of these terrible events, but I felt really sad reading that because for me as a kid the library and books were such a wonderful part of my life, expanding my horizons, helping me understand the world and myself better, providing a sense of connection at times when I felt isolated. And the kids targeted by legislative bullying definitely feel more isolated as a result; that’s what bullying and bigotry do. This is less important but I also worry, as someone who teaches at the college level, that kids who grow up in the restrictive intellectual environments imposed by the legislative bullies will be less prepared to succeed in college and other post-graduation areas of life.
An Urbandale school board member speaking on book banning said that “school districts are fearful” right now in the face of legislation trying to restrict what books kids can access in schools. That makes sense. Bullies are scary. But responding by giving the bullies what they want just makes the bullies stronger and helps them do the harms they’re choosing to do.
School boards should refuse to enforce book bans and similar laws that harm children. Iowa Democrats should call on school boards to do so. They should use their resources to limit the consequences of school boards who do so, to defend school boards who do face consequences, and to encourage protest. I know some of my liberal friends think that if school boards refuse these laws then that would make things worse. This line of thinking goes, “we can’t break the rules because that will justify the other side’s rulebreaking.” This is an understandable view, but a mistaken one, and one that grievously misunderstands the bullies. The kid who hits back at the bully does not justify the bullying, and no bully has ever paused and said “you know what, taking this kid’s lunch money would be unfair so I won’t do it.”
Liberal friends will reply that what we really need to do is vote out the legislative bullies and replace them with actual public servants. The problem is the legislative bullies control the official channels of politics right now, and those channels move too slowly to deal with the urgent issues in front of us. And remember, we’re talking about children. A long time is especially long for a kid. For, say, a ten year old, a year is a full ten percent of their life. Plus kids are having formative experiences right now. Bad things that happen to them — bad things that some adults choose to make happen to them in order to score political points and bring in donations, bad things that some other adults let happen to them because they’re afraid — will reverberate in those children’s lives for many years, often into their adult lives. If we respond to legislative bullying by saying “trust the institutions” and “behave according to the institution’s rules,” we will continue to fail children in long-lasting ways. The ordinary rules of our institutions won’t stop the bullies. This means anyone whose response to bullying consists only of behaving in line with institutional rules is at best mistaken about the problem before us.
I’ve used bullies as a metaphor here (though I do think many of our state politicians and their allies around the country really are bullies), but I will add that the historical record is very clear on these matters. There is a long and ugly history of oppression and injustice — of institutionally protected and perpetrated bullying — inflicted on groups like workers, people of color, women, disabled people, queer people. Historically those groups have never gained significant rights, and have only rarely kept their rights, except by collectively standing up to the bullies in ways that break the rules and create consequences for powerful actors. We are in another moment in that long and ugly history, and it will not get better if people of conscience only play by the rules.